


He Didn't Know It

by softestlad



Category: Emmerdale
Genre: Drunk Robert, Drunkenness, Fluff, M/M, Soft Husbands, Tooth-Rotting Fluff, happy husbands 2.0
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-15
Updated: 2019-03-15
Packaged: 2019-11-18 10:26:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,555
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18118949
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/softestlad/pseuds/softestlad
Summary: Aaron and Robert coming back from a night out where Robert is nine-tenths of the way to Chas level trollied. Cue the kisses, the softness, the DMC.ft. pancakes.





	He Didn't Know It

**Author's Note:**

> Now that they're "getting back to us" can we see them have a date night/night out where they're uninhibited and young? Pls? I know they want a baby but I want them to remember that one of them is still in their fn twenties! Get drunk and have fun my lads. Be touchy feely and affectionate. Pls, feed me the good food.

Aaron had seen Robert tipsy. He had seen him with a sweep of pink across his cheeks, a slight distance in his eyes as he licked beer foam from his lip, laughed a little louder than he usually would, moved with a sway. Aaron had seen him drunker still, loose in the limbs and elastic in the mouth, a guileless smile that’d turn seductive on a dime, the effect thoroughly ruined by his attempts to dance.

But Aaron rarely saw his husband like this anymore.

“AARON!” Aaron winced as Robert bellowed in his ear, his arm hooked around him to support Robert’s lankier frame. A frame that held all the parts of Robert that Aaron had been there to watch grow and develop, becoming the man he was now. An adult, a business owner, a brother, a father, a husband.

Aaron’s husband.

Who was entirely, utterly wankered.

“AARON!” Robert yelled again, leaving Aaron’s eardrum ringing.

“Yes! Robert, I can hear you. Shut up before you wake up half the village.”

“Sorry,” Robert curled closer as they walked, a fumbling four legged not-race back to the Mill. Though Aaron was tempted to dump Robert on Victoria’s doorstep, come what may. Robert lowered his voice to a dramatic, panto whisper. “Don’ wanna get caught, ssshh.”

“Caught?” Aaron tried to look at Robert, but his husband’s face was pressed right up against the side of his, not to mention his massive paws getting curious around Aaron’s waist, sneaking under the hem of his shirt. “Caught by who? And, stop – stop that,” Aaron jostled Robert, trying to get some distance between them. Aaron was having enough trouble focusing on keeping them walking without Robert nibbling on his ear lobe, the tug of teeth still unerringly precise as Robert’s brain soaked in cheap wine. He was getting over a cold, Aaron reflected, which was probably why he had leapfrogged straight over blathered to dive headfirst into obliterated.

“Liv,” Robert clarified, leaning into Aaron confidingly. “Don’ want her t’see us.”

“Why?”

“Breakfast s’morning,” Robert said, a touch of a whine to his voice as he careened, the two of them walking in a sloping diagonal down the street, wavering and wobbling. They’d be lucky to get home without going arse over tit, but Aaron listened to Robert’s drunken ramblings dutifully. “She thinks we’re rank.”

“Eh?”

“She said so,” Robert said. Aaron thought back to the morning for a moment before remembering – he wasn’t totally sober himself – Robert had made them pancakes for breakfast as they’d missed Pancake Tuesday. Neither of them were religious but any excuse for pancakes was good enough for them. Robert had drizzled his with maple syrup, while Aaron favoured lemon and sugar. He had looked up from his plate, pushing it away and patting his full stomach.

“Good eh?” Robert asked, smugly. Aaron would allow it. For the sake of future pancakes.

“Aye.” He caught Robert’s eye as he set his fork down on his own plate, and Robert huffed a quiet, morning-softened laugh. “What?”

Robert gestured to his face. “You’ve sugar.”

Aaron licked his lips. “Did I get it?” Robert shook his head, and Aaron repeated the swipe of his tongue, seeking out sweetness. “Now?”

Robert stared at his mouth and Aaron smiled under the gaze.

“Y’gonna help me out here, or?” Robert grinned and leaned over the table, pressing their lips together, slowly pushing his tongue into Aaron’s mouth. Sweet syrup and sugar, the cut of tart lemon juice. Robert made a deep, quiet _mm_ noise that tingled through Aaron all the way to his toes.

“Ugh, put ‘im down,” Liv said, clunking down the stairs. Aaron rolled his eyes, saw the twinkle in hers as she slung her bag on her back. “Shouldn’t have to see that first thing in the morning, s’mingin’.”

“Shu’p you,” Aaron said, taking a gulp of his tea. “Pancake batter in the bowl.”

“Can’t hang about, I’m meeting Jacob before his bus goes.” Liv plucked a banana from the bowl in front of them, making a fake-sick face as she looked between them. “Laters.”

Aaron shook his head as she left, unable to stave off the fondness. It wasn’t all smooth sailing, the three of them in the house. Liv was still a teenager, and Aaron and Robert were still, well, Aaron and Robert. There were arguments and little domestics, but on the whole, their family was back together, and for a while there Aaron had thought that would never happen. The three of them together was so right, and he felt it every time he saw the same fond sparkle in Liv’s eye, like they had succeeded in giving her the home she had always deserved. A place to belong, and people to belong to.

He hadn’t realised Robert had been having his own thoughts about it all that morning, didn’t realise it’d take the _vino_ to bring out the _veritas_.

“She was only joking, Robert.”

“I know,” Robert said, and surprised Aaron by pulling out of his arms, still walking close, brushing against him, but removed from Aaron’s hold. Just that little bit of distance.

“Hey,” Aaron said, stopping in the road. Robert took a moment to register it, but paused himself, turning around to face Aaron. “Is it really bothering you?”

“No, I mean – s’stupid isn’t it? I just – “

Robert cut himself off, toeing at the ground. Aaron couldn’t help but smile. Six foot of little kid, was his husband. He stepped closer, reaching out to hold the lapels of Robert’s jacket. He nuzzled at Robert’s nose just enough to get him to tilt into a kiss, smoothing his hands against Robert’s chest.

“It’s not stupid.”

“You haven’t even heard it yet.” Aaron raised his eyebrows. “Fine, s’just – reminds me sometimes of how it first was with us, when we lived at the pub.” Aaron remembers. Liv was _much_ less okay with Robert then, constantly asking for a sick bucket when they so much as brushed fingers passing each other a brew, making sure to call Aaron “my brother,” staking her claim.

“And?”

“And it felt like I could barely touch you sometimes!” Robert said, “And I love touchin’ you. I love loving you, out loud, where people can see how much you mean to me. Bein’ romantic with you, all loved up. We didn’t always have that, and I know – I know that was my fault,” Robert spoke with a slight drag and slur to his voice, but Aaron could hear his sincerity too. He reached up to Robert’s face, brushing a thumb along his cheekbone.

“We don’t have to think about back then,” Aaron said. “Not anymore.”

“I still do sometimes,” Robert sighed. The moonlight caught in his hair, spinning gold into silver. “Can’t believe how long it took me to realise. I mean, even then – even then, Aaron you did things to me. Crazy stuff – I, you made me wanna – “

“What?”

“Wanna be a poet or sommat.” Aaron blinked.

“A…poet?”

Robert stepped away from him then, casting his long arms out wide, performing for an audience of one in the middle of the road just two minutes away from their house. Aaron watched his bladdered husband grapple with something internally, before he collapsed.

“Rob-“ Aaron jolted forward, then realised that Robert had dropped – woozily, gracelessly – to one knee. “We’re already married, y’twonk.”

“I loved you,” Robert began grandly, then paused as he registered what Aaron said. “I’m not proposin’ again, I’m – I’m doin’ the poetry.”

“That the technical term, is it?”

“Ssh,” Robert admonished, wobbling on his knee. “Ssh artist at work, artist at work.”

Aaron laughed, then crossed his arms, waiting.

“Shoulda, shoulda said it like,” Robert pondered a bit longer, then cleared his throat. Boldly, he tried, “I love you like the waves love the shore!”

Aaron took it in, remembering back to that time for them. Exciting and tumultuous, heartbreaking, dangerous. Hurtful, for them and others. Revelatory, though. Lifechanging.

“What, destructively?” Aaron joked, caught off guard by the echoing feelings. “Eroding? Wearing me down over time?” Robert’s face fell, drunk and soft and open. He looked forlorn, the panto confidence gone out of him as he kneeled in the middle of the street.

“Always coming back to you,” he said, softly. He sat back on his heels.

Aaron’s heart skipped. His husband. Apparently, a poet.

Aaron kneeled in front of him, Robert’s face below his. He took Robert’s face in his hands and poured love into his mouth, sliding their lips together, then their tongues, their breaths. They kissed, Robert winding his arms around Aaron and pulling him close, their bodies pressed together from chest to knee. A roll of clouds passed in front of the moon, shadows dancing on the road and across their skin.

“This is better anyway,” Aaron said, his knees getting sore and the breath stolen out of him by a man he’d give it to for free. “Y’don’t have to come back to me anymore. Y’never leave.”

Robert smiled, “Y’say that like it’s a good thing,” he said. Aaron smiled back, then worked on getting his feet back under him, dusted off his knees, then reached a hand down to help Robert up, still alcohol-loose and ungainly.

“The best,” Aaron said, warmly. Robert took his hand and clambered to standing. Aaron didn’t let go.


End file.
